How Shall We Read Our Bibles?
By E. P. Goodwin
A writer in the Advance of October 29, thinks we must read them with careful discrimination. We must not say the Bible is the word of God, but the Bible contains the word of God. We must not claim the same divine authority for the one hundred and thirty-seventh psalm as for the twenty-third. We must pick out and emphasize as divine the things that are undeniably such in their spirit, and let the things that put a strain on faith or reason go as of little or no value. Another theory of discrimination says we must take heed not to read our Bibles too literally. We must remember that the writers of Scripture were all men of the East, given to figures and extravagances of speech. Some of them were poets, and testified in the language of vivid imagination. We must allow for this, and when we come upon things here and there that seem contradictory or improbable, dismiss them as the inexact utterances of high-wrought fancy or of poetic license. Is this, now, the way to read our Bibles? No question can be of more importance. Obviously the authority of the Bible as a revealer of God's truth and a supreme standard of doctrine and morals, and its value as a guide and help to Christian life, will depend on the answer we accept. Fortunately we are not left here to the opinions of uninspired men. We have ample and plain testimony as to how our Lord and his disciples read the Scriptures. We shall make no mistake if we read them in the same way. Rather, we have no liberty in the matter. We must read them as they did, or we shall dishonor alike the word and Him who gave it. Our Lord was the great truth-teacher. "For this cause came I into the world," said he to Pilate, "that I should bear witness unto the truth." It is impossible that if there were parts of the Scriptures then in the hands of the people, and received as the word of God, which were not divinely inspired, or were not binding, or were clearly untruthful and misleading, those who read them or heard them taught by errors of fact or of doctrine, or of a spirit not of God breathing through them,—He should not have testified explicitly thereto. He was the one to point out discriminations to be made, to tell us when and where to make exceptions. Not to do this with his perfect knowledge of such falsities and of the consequences that would inevitably result from their non-exposure, would be to lend himself to the cause of untruth. But how did this All-knowing One treat the Scriptures? He did point out and condemn most unsparingly the misinterpretations and perversions of Scripture taught by the rabbis, but never uttered a word impugning the divine authority of the Scriptures themselves. On the contrary, he was always exalting them as in all their parts of co-equal divine authority: "Search the Scriptures; . . . for they are they which testify of me." "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures;" "The Scriptures must be fulfilled;" "The Scriptures cannot be broken." This is his constant testimony. Such an indorsement of these Old Testament Scriptures by our Lord is most significant. The Jews of his day recognized precisely the same sacred books as do the Jews of our day; the same, though differently arranged, that make up the Old Testament of our Bibles. The witness of Christ sets upon these the seal of authority as the divine and infallible word of God. After his resurrection, he reproached the two disciples on the way to Emmaus for their ignorance, saying, "O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken." And when he revealed himself to the twelve, he said unto them: "These are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, that all things might be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms concerning me." Here is a twofold witness to the divine character and authority of the Scriptures. The expression, "the law, the prophets, and the Psalms," was the current one among the Jews for all the books of the Old Testament. Our Lord therefore indorses these as a whole as divinely originated, and then indorses all their teachings as divinely inspired. More, even. He puts the emphasis of his indorsement on what most advocates of discrimination either reject or set aside as unauthoritative and unprofitable. The testimony of Moses is with the critics particularly uncertain and unsatisfactory. But our Lord cites Moses more than any other writer, and plants himself on what Moses says as of equal authority with what he says himself. The theory of a Bible with parts of different authority and value, reckons the story of the deluge an allegory; that of Sodom or of Jonah, a myth or a creation of fancy, to point a moral. But our Lord, as it were, singles out these very records, and not only puts the stamp of truthfulness upon them, but takes them as the types of certainties the most absolute and stupendous of any in the whole sweep of his teaching. He stakes the certainty of his death and resurrection upon the literalness of the record as to Jonah. And the doom of Sodom as an actual event, terrific and remediless, he makes the prophecy and the symbol of the dark and hopeless future of the unsaved. There is little need to add that the disciples of Christ read the Scriptures in the same way. Paul writes to Timothy: "From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation." He calls these Old Testament writings "the oracles of God." And he declares that in all his preaching he has said "none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come." The witness of Peter and James and John is to the same effect. Beyond doubt, the disciples of our Lord stood exactly on his ground, and recognized the whole of Scripture as a unit, a book of testimony as to law, doctrine, facts, originated under the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and meant to be regarded as the infallible word of God. All this bears directly on the other point also, viz.; as to the literalness with which we shall read our Bibles. Neither Christ nor his apostles ever suggest any caution about poetical license, Oriental imagery, peculiarities of style, and the like. They quote the Scriptures just as they find them in law, prophets, Psalms, and take them as they read. We have noted how our Lord cited the records of the deluge, the overthrow of Sodom, the account of Jonah and the whale. He read these literally. But just so he read Isaiah and the Psalms. He cites them just as he cites Moses. David means David, Jerusalem means Jerusalem, Zion means Zion, Jews means Jews, Gentiles means Gentiles, and kingdom means kingdom. He quoted in his first sermon from one of the most intensely poetical passages of Isaiah, but he applied it to himself as literally true, word for word. So always, whether the prophecies concerned his sufferings and death, his resurrection, or his future glory. The disciples did likewise. When Peter quoted Joel and David at Pentecost, he quoted them as meaning just what they said. And just so when James quoted Amos in the council at Jerusalem, and Paul quoted Moses and the prophets before Agrippa. Obviously this is the only way in which we can read our Bibles and do them honor. There are, of course, figures of speech, symbolisms, every variety of language here, and these are to be taken just as in any other book. We have little difficulty anywhere in understanding these by applying the ordinary and simple rules of interpretation. Just so in the Scriptures. To a greater degree than many think, they furnish their own interpretation as respects even what seems at first obscure. The one law to be followed is to assume that these Scripture writers mean just what they say. Wherever unusual symbols and imagery occur, or there is a figurative presentation of the truth, there will invariably be that in the immediate connection, or in other Scripture related thereto, which will make this clear. It is surprising to every thoughtful student of the word how true this is. When Daniel dreams a dream or sees a vision, the record so states, and the key of the dream or the vision is given. When Zechariah sees strange-looking horses among the myrtle trees, the man by his side shows him what they represent. When John sees seven golden candlesticks, the Lord Jesus himself explains their meaning. So ever. There are doubtless deep things and hard to be understood; but the inspired preface to the book most difficult of all to fathom, says, "Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this prophecy." God's word is not a dark lantern, but a lamp. And the true way to use it is to let its own light shine, to take it just as it reads. Take, for illustration, the account in the first chapter of Luke, of the coming of the angel to Mary and his message, How shall we read this, as part literal and part figurative? Shall we say there was a literal angel and a figurative message? A literal child with a literal name, but a figurative man with a figurative career? A literal "Son of the Highest," and a literal "Lord God," but a figurative "throne of David," a figurative "house of Jacob," and a figurative "kingdom" of which "there shall be no end"? Obviously we cannot read this scripture thus. The exaltation must be as literal as the humiliation, the throne as the manger, the house of Jacob and the kingdom as the angel and the mother. Just so of all other scriptures. Neither prophets nor apostles ask us to apologize for or defend them, but to read and believe what they say as moved by the Holy Spirit. If people find the difficulties of Scriptures a stumbling-block, let us remember that Christ himself was "a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense even to them which stumble at the word." Yet God gave his Son and his word to be alike the light of the world. There were none so blind in the old time as they who having eyes saw not. Yet they were within the church, and claimed to be wise in the things written. Let us take heed that we do not walk in darkness for the same reason.